


Drugs With Friends

by thehappybones



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 20:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30094401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehappybones/pseuds/thehappybones
Summary: Ace and the Seventh Doctor use drugs recreationally.
Relationships: Seventh Doctor & Ace McShane
Kudos: 4





	Drugs With Friends

**Author's Note:**

> i havent smoked in months. i miss weed.

The first time was when she was- well, it felt like they had been traveling for about a year, but she wasn’t really keeping track of her age back then. So she was probably seventeen. Somewhere around there.

She left her bedroom door open and the Doctor, waltzing by, caught her mid-inhale and she startled and choked on it. He sighed, walked in and snatched the bong from her, which Ace found disappointing but not surprising.

“Primitive sort of thing,” he said, and took a hit and coughed and handed it back to her and left. She watched him go, mouth agape. 

Ace ran into him reading in the console room. She had quietly wondered why he would bring books back here instead of just reading them in the library. 

“Where did you even get that stuff?” he asked, not looking up.

“What, the pot?” He nodded. “Brought it with me from the station. Bought it from Glitz. Don’t know where he got it.”

The Doctor’s face twisted. “So it’s old  _ and  _ rubbish.”

She bit her tongue to stop herself from mentioning that she was also running out of it.

He closed his book. “Well, I’m not going to provide anything. But if we land somewhere with a decent market and maybe some paraphernalia that’s a little easier on the lungs…” The Doctor glanced at the book again. “I might mention it.”

She had no idea how to respond, so she muttered thanks and scuttled out of the console room.

* * *

The second time was after they left Perivale. Her Perivale. Took a moment to decompress. Ace still felt a touch catty and was grappling with the realization that her friends were going on without her. They both sat beside the pool, reclining on pool chairs, fully normally clothed.

He frowned. “How on Earth are you supposed to muck about on a featureless hill?”

“Come on, Professor, I was being polite. Of course we were smoking.”

“Oh.” He hummed. “I’m bad at subtleties like that.”

“I figured- well, you haven’t brought it up since you caught me. Wasn’t sure if you wanted to discuss it.”

They were silent for a bit. The pool had some really nice laid back music playing- all the interplanetary genres were a bit much for Ace to grasp, but this sounded a lot like music from the 14th century traditionalist Chinese colonies.

“Well?” he said, and held his hand out. She chuckled and put the gizmo in his hand. That was what she had taken to calling it, anyways. It was about six inches long, a regal coppery sort of material with a smooth indent for holding. It felt good on your insides, like a breath of fresh air and a bit of buzz. The shopkeep told her another model could do different colors of steam, but that kind of trick dated itself pretty quickly.

He inhaled lightly and passed it back.

“Surprised it even works on you,” she said.

“Maybe I just like the flavor.”

She laughed. “It’s kind of amazing, that weed made it to all those different colonies. I kind of thought they’d just have their new sci-fi engineered drug strains, but… where there’s humans, there’s weed.” She took a hit. “Feels like the laws are all over the place, though.”

He nodded. “I try to avoid mind-altering substances for a lot of reasons. I want to be ready for an emergency whenever. People still sneak other things in, even in the future. But one of my big barriers is, uh, it’s rather difficult to get fakes for a thousand different planets.”

“We met that guy with the psychic paper. You could get one of those.”

The Professor frowned. “Not a bad idea.”

* * *

The third time was during a punk show at a space station, something she instinctively wanted to call a basement show even though they weren’t anything close to being underground. A cute girl with green sclera slipped her a stick of gum. While they were making out in the bathroom, passing it between them, Ace’s ears went hot and her fingers trembled. 

“What’s in this?” she said.

“First time?”

The Doctor propped her up against his shoulder as they returned to the TARDIS. “You can’t just eat suspicious sweets you’re offered by randoms,” he scolded.

“C’mon, Professor, she was cute.”

“Remind me to keep you far away from any siren species.”

He took her to the kitchen and made her some tea. The TARDIS dimmed the lights. “She likes you, you know,” he told her.

“Well I like her. Are you annoyed at me, Professor?”

He rolled his eyes.

“But you’re here!”

“I’ve tripped alone before,” he said. “Not something I’m letting you do.”

She’d only heard the word used for hallucinogens before, but she knew she wasn’t hallucinating right now. Ace felt much more… internal, like the tag of her shirt rubbing against the back of her neck and her sore feet weren’t positive or negative, they just were unique things for her to experience. Like if the Doctor was peeved at her, that was his problem.

“Put this in your mouth,” he said. It looked like a digital thermometer. He took it back after a few seconds and looked at its little screen. “You’re lucky. You’ll be back in shape in half an hour. It’s not dangerous by itself, but it’ll seriously harm your ability to judge danger.”

“I’ll stay out of trouble, then. First time in my life.” She sipped her tea. It didn’t taste different, just… she tasted it different.

* * *

The fourth time, the Doctor had a meal, unbeknownst to him, heavily seasoned with ginger, and Ace drank cheap beer in solidarity. 

“How’d you not recognize the taste?” she asked, giggling.

“I haven’t had it in a while!”

“Any other random human shit that fucks you over like this?”

He looked around conspiratorially. “Paste,” he muttered.

“And how’d you figure that out?”

He shrugged, his head lolling a bit. “I was commanding a fleet of preschoolers for a while. You get curious.”

* * *

“Ace, never do cocaine,” he once told her unprompted. “It’s not as good as people say it is.”

She looked up from her mechanical work. “Right-o, Professor.” For a second, he looked unimaginably old.

* * *

The thirtieth time she went through the door that always led to the closet and found herself in a bedroom with a cluttered desk and a gaudy comforter and hanging displays of seven different solar systems covering the ceiling. 

The last thing her eyes settled on was a recliner in the corner, the Doctor sitting in it, curled up in a blanket and cradling a tin of biscuits. He wasn’t looking at her.

She had never seen this room before, and she had never seen him looking like that before. She went stiff. “Oh. Uh, sorry, Doctor. I was trying to go to the closet.”

He seemed happy to see her. “Oh!” he said. “Are you trying a new look?” The Doctor held out the tin and, taking it as an invitation, she sat down on his bed across from him and took one. She noticed he was wearing a hoodie. It was weird how human he looked. 

“Not really. Just wanted to grab some waterproof boots, after last week. I think someone else who’s lived here had the same size feet as me. And good taste in shoes.” She took a bite and chewed very slowly. “Are you feeling okay, Professor?”

“Perfectly fine.”

She settled into the silence while she waited for him to tell the truth. Ace wondered what she would’ve thought of the Doctor if she met him on Earth. If she would’ve believed him when he said he wasn’t human. Back then, she thought of aliens as big-headed green guys looking to dissect people.

“I found some old stuff,” he admitted. “They only make it on Gallifrey, and I try to avoid there.”

They really did have the same weaknesses.

“I tried some. But it just reminded me…”

He had the lights so dim in here. “I’m sorry, Professor. I get it.” She briefly considered how much of a hypocrite he was, dragging her back to his hometown when he knew how much it sucked, but decided to bring that up when he was in a better space.

“Ace, when I sober up, I didn’t say this,” he said.

“‘Course.”

“I feel you’re the only member of my species I’ve ever met.”

“‘Scuse me?”

He sighed. “Never felt like a proper Time Lord, I’ll definitely never be a proper human. But I feel like… we’re kindred, I guess.”

Ace nodded. “I get that.”

“But I didn’t say that.”

“‘Course not.” Maybe that was what they were. Mentor hadn’t applied to them in a long time and he definitely wasn’t her father figure and best friend didn’t feel like enough. Maybe that was why they blew up at each other so often. Why Ace always kept a suitcase packed in her room. 


End file.
